Senior center Thomas Welsh is the seventh player in UCLA history with 1,000 career points (1,170) and 900 career rebounds (952), joining a list that includes Hall of Famers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton. He’ll play his final home game at Pauley Pavilion on Saturday night against Oregon. (AP Photo/Michael Owen Baker)

LOS ANGELES — The first time he played at Pauley Pavilion with jerseys of legendary centers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton hanging overhead, Thomas Welsh scored three points in 17 minutes in his unofficial college debut. He missed five of his six shots and grabbed eight rebounds. It was an exhibition game against Azuza Pacific four years ago. To him, it feels like yesterday.

“The four years have flown by,” UCLA’s senior center said this week before playing in the final homestand of his college career. “It’s been an incredible ride.”

The ride is approaching a complete stop now as UCLA will honor its four senior players and four senior support staff members prior to Saturday’s 7:15 p.m. game against Oregon at Pauley Pavilion, UCLA’s last home game of the year. UCLA will honor student trainer Kaviyon Sadrolashrafi, student video coordinator Joe Preston and student managers Sam Schmall and Nick Griffin, before saluting its four senior athletes, Welsh, Ikenna Okwarabizie, Alec Wulff and GG Goloman.

“Those four (players) as a group, what I appreciate the most is what kind of people they are,” Coach Steve Alford said, “what kind of students they are and what kind of players they are because they embody what we want our culture to look like and that’s what I appreciate the most.

“And the managers we have graduating as well have been tremendous behind the scenes of making sure everything goes the way we want in organization and everything else.”

Welsh has transformed from gangly high school bench player to McDonald’s All-American to late-season finalist for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award, which is given to the nation’s top center. The soft-spoken 7-footer grabbed a career-high 17 rebounds in Thursday’s victory over Oregon State. He is third on UCLA’s all-time blocked shots list (138) and sixth in career rebounds. He’s the seventh player in UCLA history with 1,000 career points (1,170) and 900 career rebounds (952), joining a list that includes Abdul-Jabbar and Walton.

Abdul-Jabbar and Walton shared Pauley Pavilion with Welsh earlier this season when the school honored Abdul-Jabbar’s 1968 national championship-winning team on Jan. 27 against Stanford with Walton on the TV broadcast. Welsh, a Redondo Beach native who went to Loyola High, called the legacy of great players one of the reasons why he chose UCLA.

“It’s such an honor to wear these four letters across my chest,” he said in January. “When you have two of the best bigs to ever play the game walking through the gym, it’s a pretty special environment and we’re just trying our best to follow in their footsteps.”

After flirting with the NBA last spring, Welsh decided to return to UCLA, hoping to expand his skill set and finish his degree. He’s extended his nearly automatic mid-range jumper into a reliable 3-pointer, the type of shot that would make him more valuable in today’s NBA, although he still lacks much of the natural athleticism that characterizes many top centers in the league.

Welsh doesn’t wow crowds with jaw-dropping windmill dunks or flashy passing the way some of his teammates do, but Alford said the senior is “a special player.”

The center uses the same word to describe his time at UCLA.

“It’s been a dream come true to be able to be an L.A. kid and be able to play for UCLA,” Welsh said. “It’s really been special. I take a lot of pride in that.”

Thuc Nhi Nguyen has covered UCLA for the Southern California News Group since 2016. A proud Seattle native, she majored in journalism and mathematics at the University of Washington. She likes graphs, animated GIFs and superheroes.

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